7. Why Is The Claim That Dinosaurs Evolved Into Birds An Unscientific Myth?

The theory of evolution is a fairy tale built on the hope of the impossible coming true. Birds have a special place in this story. Above all things, birds possess that magnificent organ, the wing. Beyond the structural wonders of wings, their function also inspires amazement. So much so that flight was man's obsession for thousands of years, and thousands of scientists and researchers put considerable effort into duplicating it. Apart from a few very primitive attempts, man only managed to build machines capable of flying in the twentieth century. Birds have been doing something which man tried to do with the accumulated technology of hundreds of years right through the millions of years that they have existed. Moreover, a young bird can acquire this skill after only a few attempts. Many of their characteristics are so perfect that not even the products of the latest modern technology can compare with them.

The theory of evolution relies on prejudiced comments and twisting the truth to account for the emergence of life and all its variety. When it comes to living things such as birds, science is finally sidelined completely, to be replaced by evolutionists' fantasy stories. The reason for this is the creatures that evolutionists claim to be the ancestors of birds. The theory of evolution maintains that the ancestors of birds were dinosaurs, members of the reptile family. Such a claim raises two questions that need to be answered. The first is, "How did dinosaurs come to grow wings?" The second is, "Why is there no sign of such a development in the fossil record?"

On the subject of how dinosaurs turned into birds, evolutionists debated the matter for a long time and came up with two theories. The first of these is the "cursorial" theory. This maintains that dinosaurs turned into birds by taking to the air from the ground. Supporters of the second theory object to the cursorial theory, and say that it is not possible for dinosaurs to have turned into birds in this way. They offer another solution to the question. They claim that dinosaurs that lived in the branches of trees turned into birds by trying to jump from one branch to another. This is known as the "arboreal" theory. The answer to the question of how dinosaurs could have taken to the air is also ready: "While trying to catch flies."

However, we must first of all put the following question to those people who claim that a flight system, together with wings, emerged from the body of such an animal as a dinosaur: How did flies' flight system, that is much more efficient than that of a helicopter, which is in turn modelled on them, come about? You will see that evolutionists have no answer. It is certainly most unreasonable for a theory which cannot explain the flight system of such a tiny creature as the fly to claim that dinosaurs turned into birds.

The idea that "dinosaurs grew wings while trying to catch flies" is not a joke, but rather a theory which evolutionists claim is very scientific. This example is sufficient by itself to show how seriously we should take evolutionists.

As a result, all reasonable, logical scientists are agreed that the only scientific things about these theories is their Latin names. The essence of the matter is that flight by reptiles is simply the product of fantasy.

Evolutionists who claim that dinosaurs turned into birds need to be able to find evidence for it in the fossil record. If dinosaurs did turn into birds, then half-dinosaur, half-bird creatures must have lived in the past and left some trace behind them in the fossil record. For long years evolutionists claimed that a bird called "Archaeopteryx" represented such a transition. However, those claims were nothing but a great deception.

The Archaeopteryx deception

Archaeopteryx, the so-called ancestor of modern birds according to evolutionists, lived approximately 150 million years ago. The theory holds that some small dinosaurs, such as Velociraptors or Dromaeosaurs, evolved by acquiring wings and then starting to fly. Thus, Archaeopteryx is assumed to be a transitional form that branched off from its dinosaur ancestors and started to fly for the first time.

However, the latest studies of Archaeopteryx fossils indicate that this explanation lacks any scientific foundation. This is absolutely not a transitional form, but an extinct species of bird, having some insignificant differences from modern birds.

The thesis that Archaeopteryx was a "half-bird" that could not fly perfectly was popular among evolutionist circles until not long ago. The absence of a sternum (breastbone) in this creature was held up as the most important evidence that this bird could not fly properly. (The sternum is a bone found under the thorax to which the muscles required for flight are attached. In our day, this breastbone is observed in all flying and non-flying birds, and even in bats, a flying mammal which belongs to a very different family.)

However, the seventh Archaeopteryx fossil, which was found in 1992, disproved this argument. The reason was that in this recently discovered fossil, the breastbone that was long assumed by evolutionists to be missing was discovered to have existed after all. This fossil was described in the journal Nature as follows:

The recently discovered seventh specimen of the Archaeopteryx preserves a partial, rectangular sternum, long suspected but never previously documented. This attests to its strong flight muscles, but its capacity for long flights is questionable. 30

This discovery invalidated the mainstay of the claims that Archaeopteryx was a half-bird that could not fly properly.

Morevoer, the structure of the bird's feathers became one of the most important pieces of evidence confirming that Archaeopteryx was a flying bird in the true sense. The asymmetric feather structure of Archaeopteryx is indistinguishable from that of modern birds, and indicates that it could fly perfectly well. As the eminent paleontologist Carl O. Dunbar states, "Because of its feathers, [Archaeopteryx is] distinctly to be classed as a bird."31 Paleontologist Robert Carroll further explains the subject:

The geometry of the flight feathers of Archaeopteryx is identical with that of modern flying birds, whereas nonflying birds have symmetrical feathers. The way in which the feathers are arranged on the wing also falls within the range of modern birds… According to Van Tyne and Berger, the relative size and shape of the wing of Archaeopteryx are similar to that of birds that move through restricted openings in vegetation, such as gallinaceous birds, doves, woodcocks, woodpeckers, and most passerine birds… The flight feathers have been in stasis for at least 150 million years… 32

Another fact that was revealed by the structure of Archaeopteryx's feathers was its warm-blooded metabolism. As was discussed above, reptiles and—although there is some evolutionist wishful thinking on the opposite direction—dinosaurs are cold-blooded animals whose body heat fluctuates with the temperature of their environment, rather than being homeostatically regulated. A very important function of the feathers on birds is the maintenance of a constant body temperature. The fact that Archaeopteryx had feathers shows that it was a real, warm-blooded bird that needed to retain its body heat, in contrast to dinosaurs.

The anatomy of Archaeopteryx and the evolutionists' error

Two important points evolutionary biologists rely on when claiming Archaeopteryx was a transitional form, are the claws on its wings and its teeth.

It is true that Archaeopteryx had claws on its wings and teeth in its mouth, but these traits do not imply that the creature bore any kind of relationship to reptiles. Besides, two bird species living today, the touraco and the hoatzin, have claws which allow them to hold onto branches. These creatures are fully birds, with no reptilian characteristics. That is why it is completely groundless to assert that Archaeopteryx is a transitional form just because of the claws on its wings.

Neither do the teeth in Archaeopteryx's beak imply that it is a transitional form. Evolutionists are wrong to say that these teeth are reptilian characteristics, since teeth are not a typical feature of reptiles. Today, some reptiles have teeth while others do not. Moreover, Archaeopteryx is not the only bird species to possess teeth. It is true that there are no toothed birds in existence today, but when we look at the fossil record, we see that both during the time of Archaeopteryx and afterwards, and even until fairly recently, a distinct group of birds existed that could be categorised as "birds with teeth."

Studies of Archaeopteryx's anatomy revealed that it possessed complete powers of flight, just like a modern bird has. The efforts to liken it to a reptile are totally unfounded.

The most important point is that the tooth structure of Archaeopteryx and other birds with teeth is totally different from that of their alleged ancestors, the dinosaurs. The well-known ornithologists L. D. Martin, J. D. Stewart, and K. N. Whetstone observed that Archaeopteryx and other similar birds have unserrated teeth with constricted bases and expanded roots. Yet the teeth of theropod dinosaurs, the alleged ancestors of these birds, had serrated teeth with straight roots.33 These researchers also compared the ankle bones of Archaeopteryx with those of their alleged ancestors, the dinosaurs, and observed no similarity between them. 34

Studies by anatomists such as S. Tarsitano, M.K. Hecht, and A.D. Walker have revealed that some of the similarities that John Ostrom, a leading authority on the subject who claims that Archaeopteryx evolved from dinosaurs, and others have seen between the limbs of Archaeopteryx and dinosaurs were in reality misinterpretations.35 For example, A.D. Walker has analysed the ear region of Archaeopteryx and found that it is very similar to that of modern birds. 36

In his book Icons of Evolution, American biologist Jonathan Wells remarks that Archaeopteryx has been turned into an "icon" of the theory of evolution, whereas evidence clearly shows that this creature is not the primitive ancestor of birds. According to Wells, one of the indications of this is that theropod dinosaurs—the alleged ancestors of Archaeopteryx—are actually younger than Archaeopteryx: "Two-legged reptiles that ran along the ground, and had other features one might expect in an ancestor of Archaeopteryx, appear later." 37

All these findings indicate that Archaeopteryx was not a transitional link but only a bird that fell into a category that can be called "toothed birds." Linking this creature to theropod dinosaurs is completely invalid. In an article headed "The Demise of the 'Birds Are Dinosaurs' Theory," the American biologist Richard L. Deem writes the following about Archaeopteryx and the bird-dinosaur evolution claim:

The results of the recent studies show that the hands of the theropod dinosaurs are derived from digits I, II, and III, whereas the wings of birds, although they look alike in terms of structure, are derived from digits II, III, and IV... There are other problems with the "birds are dinosaurs" theory. The theropod forelimb is much smaller (relative to body size) than that of Archaeopteryx. The small "proto-wing" of the theropod is not very convincing, especially considering the rather hefty weight of these dinosaurs. The vast majority of the theropod lack the semilunate wrist bone, and have a large number of other wrist elements which have no homology to the bones of Archaeopteryx. In addition, in almost all theropods, nerve V1 exits the braincase out the side, along with several other nerves, whereas in birds, it exits out the front of the braincase, though its own hole. There is also the minor problem that the vast majority of the theropods appeared after the appearance of Archaeopteryx. 38

These facts once more indicate for certain that neither Archaeopteryx nor other ancient birds similar to it were transitional forms. The fossils do not indicate that different bird species evolved from each other. On the contrary, the fossil record proves that today's modern birds and some archaic birds such as Archaeopteryx actually lived together at the same time. It is true that some of these bird species, such as Archaeopteryx and Confuciusornis, have become extinct, but the fact that only some of the species that once existed have been able to survive down to the present day does not in itself support the theory of evolution.

Latest Evidence: Ostrich Study Refutes The Dino-Bird Story

Drs. Alan Feduccia and Julie Nowicki of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studied a series of live ostrich eggs and, once again, concluded that, there cannot be an evolutionary link between birds and dinosaurs. EurekAlert, a scientific portal held by the American Association for the The Advancement of Science (AAAS), reports the following:

Drs. Alan Feduccia and Julie Nowicki of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill... opened a series of live ostrich eggs at various stages of development and found what they believe is proof that birds could not have descended from dinosaurs...

Whatever the ancestor of birds was, it must have had five fingers, not the three-fingered hand of theropod dinosaurs," Feduccia said... "Scientists agree that dinosaurs developed 'hands' with digits one, two and three... Our studies of ostrich embryos, however, showed conclusively that in birds, only digits two, three and four, which correspond to the human index, middle and ring fingers, develop, and we have pictures to prove it," said Feduccia, professor and former chair of biology at UNC. "This creates a new problem for those who insist that dinosaurs were ancestors of modern birds. How can a bird hand, for example, with digits two, three and four evolve from a dinosaur hand that has only digits one, two and three? That would be almost impossible."39

In the same report, Dr. Feduccia also made important comments on the invalidity—and the shallowness—of the "birds evolved from dinosaurs" theory:

"There are insurmountable problems with that theory," he [Dr. Feduccia] said. "Beyond what we have just reported, there is the time problem in that superficially bird-like dinosaurs occurred some 25 million to 80 million years after the earliest known bird, which is 150 million years old."

"If one views a chicken skeleton and a dinosaur skeleton through binoculars they appear similar, but close and detailed examination reveals many differences," Feduccia said. "Theropod dinosaurs, for example, had curved, serrated teeth, but the earliest birds had straight, unserrated peg-like teeth. They also had a different method of tooth implantation and replacement."40

This evidence once again reveals that the "dino-bird" hype is just another "icon" of Darwinism: a myth that is supported only for the sake of a dogmatic faith in the theory.

Evolutionists' bogus dino-bird fossils

With the collapse of evolutionists' claims regarding fossils like Archaeopteryx, they are now at a complete dead-end as regards the origin of birds. That is why some evolutionists have had to resort to classical methods–forgery. In the 1990s, the public were several times given the message that "a half-dinosaur, half-bird fossil has been found." The evolutionist media carried pictures of these so-called "dino-birds" and an international campaign was thus set in motion. However, it soon began to emerge that the campaign was based on contradiction and forgery.

The first hero of the campaign was a dinosaur called Sinosauropteryx, discovered in China in 1996. The fossil was presented to the whole world as a "feathered dinosaur," and made a number of headlines. However, detailed analyses in the months that followed revealed that the structures which evolutionists had excitedly portrayed as "bird feathers" were actually nothing of the kind.

This was how the matter was presented in an article called "Plucking the Feathered Dinosaur" in the journal Science:

Exactly 1 year ago, paleontologists were abuzz about photos of a so-called "feathered dinosaur," which were passed around the halls at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. The Sinosauropteryx specimen from the Yixian Formation in China made the front page of The New York Times, and was viewed by some as confirming the dinosaurian origins of birds. But at this year's vertebrate paleontology meeting in Chicago late last month, the verdict was a bit different: The structures are not modern feathers, say the roughly half-dozen Western paleontologists who have seen the specimens…paleontologist Larry Martin of Kansas University, Lawrence, thinks the structures are frayed collagenous fibers beneath the skin—-and so have nothing to do with birds.41

Another "dino-bird" storm blew up in 1999. Another fossil discovered in China was presented to the world as "major evidence for evolution." National Geographic magazine, the source of the campaign, drew and published imaginary "feathered dinosaur" pictures inspired by the fossil, and these hit the headlines in a number of countries. This species, which was said to have lived 125 million years ago, was immediately given the scientific name Archaeoraptor liaoningensis.

However, the fossil was a fake and was skilfully constructed from five separate specimens. A group of researchers, among whom were also three paleontologists, proved the forgery one year later with the help of X-ray computed tomography. The dino-bird was actually the product of a Chinese evolutionist. Chinese amateurs formed the dino-bird by using glue and cement from 88 bones and stones. Research suggests that Archaeoraptor was built from the front part of the skeleton of an ancient bird, and that its body and tail included bones from four different specimens. An article in the scientific journal Nature describes the forgery like this:

The Archaeoraptor fossil was announced as a 'missing link' and purported to be possibly the best evidence since Archaeopteryx that birds did, in fact, evolve from certain types of carnivorous dinosaur. But Archaeoraptor was revealed to be a forgery in which bones of a primitive bird and a non-flying dromaeosaurid dinosaur had been combined… The Archaeoraptor specimen, which was reportedly collected from the Early Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation of Liaoning, was smuggled out of China and later sold in the United States on the commercial market… We conclude that Archaeoraptor represents two or more species and that it was assembled from at least two, and possibly five, separate specimens.... 42

So how was it that National Geographic could have presented such a huge scientific forgery to the whole world as "major evidence for evolution"? The answer to this question lay concealed in the magazine's evolutionary fantasies. Since National Geographic was blindly supportive of Darwinism and had no hesitation about using any propaganda tool it saw as being in favour of the theory, it ended up signing up to a second "Piltdown man scandal."

Evolutionist scientists also accepted National Geographic's fanaticism. Dr. Storrs L. Olson, head of the famous U.S. Smithsonian Institute's Ornithology Department, announced that he had previously warned that the fossil was a forgery, but that the magazine's executives had ignored him. In a letter he wrote to Peter Raven of National Geographic, Olson wrote:

National Geographic magazine portrayed "dino-birds" in this way in 1999, and presented them to the whole world as evidence of evolution. Two years later, however, the source of inspiration for these drawings, Archaeoraptor, was shown to be a scientific falsehood.

Prior to the publication of the article "Dinosaurs Take Wing" in the July 1998 National Geographic, Lou Mazzatenta, the photographer for Sloan's article, invited me to the National Geographic Society to review his photographs of Chinese fossils and to comment on the slant being given to the story. At that time, I tried to interject the fact that strongly supported alternative viewpoints existed to what National Geographic intended to present, but it eventually became clear to me that National Geographic was not interested in anything other than the prevailing dogma that birds evolved from dinosaurs.43

In a statement in USA Today, Olson said, "The problem is, at some point the fossil was known by Geographic to be a fake, and that information was not revealed."44 In other words, he said that National Geographic maintained the deception, even though it knew that the fossil it was portraying as proof of evolution was a forgery.

We must make it clear that this attitude of National Geographic was not the first forgery that had been carried out in the name of the theory of evolution. Many such incidents have taken place since it was first proposed. The German biologist Ernst Haeckel drew false pictures of embryos in order to support Darwin. British evolutionists mounted an orangutan jaw on a human skull and exhibited it for some 40 years in the British Museum as "Piltdown man, the greatest evidence for evolution." American evolutionists put forward "Nebraska man" from a single pig's tooth. All over the world, false pictures called "reconstructions," which have never actually lived, have been portrayed as "primitive creatures" or "ape-men."

In short, evolutionists once again employed the method they first tried in the Piltdown man forgery. They themselves created the intermediate form they were unable to find. This event went down in history as showing how deceptive the international propaganda on behalf of the theory of evolution is, and that evolutionists will resort to all kinds of falsehood for its sake.

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